


Fractured

by Adiros Alitros (Adira_Tyree)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Post-Apocalypse, Soldiers, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 02:33:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2796452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adira_Tyree/pseuds/Adiros%20Alitros
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This short work inspired by the Fallout game series shows three flashes in the life of a soldier living in the remains of the post-nuclear apocalyptic USA. It is one of the few short works I've written in the last year or two that could be considered an original work, but it's still heavily inspired by Fallout. </p><p>* This work was first published in <i>The Inklings: 2014</i>, by the Inklings of the University at Albany. Posted with permission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fractured

I.

 

       Everywhere, the air was dry and chalky. It was like all the life had been sucked out of the world. I didn’t know what to do. I could hear my captain barking orders at me, other rangers on either side of me urging me to move forward; _there’s nothing you can do for them now, just keep going._ Still others just shook their heads and marched past. Had the air always seemed so dry, so grey and brown and thick? I’d been wearing my mask for so long now that I couldn’t remember what it was like to be exposed to the open air.

       As I reached up to undo the clasp at the back of my head, I could feel the other rangers pulling my arms back down to my sides. They didn’t understand, I had to get it off, had to breathe. They were shouting at me but I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying. If I could only get the mask off…

       A movement caught my eye, far out under the fallen front door of one of the hundreds of destroyed houses. It was tiny, but I held out my hopes for it, praying that anyone could have survived the massacre here. With all my strength I broke free of my fellows and broke rank, running at full force towards that charred blue door.

       The rest of the house was in shambles: windows broken; walls shot full of holes; it looked like an RPG blast had caught the neighbor’s roof and torn off part of the upper floor of the house with the blue door. I was sure it had moved, but I didn’t know how someone could have survived here. Even the dogs had been murdered, and the ones that hadn’t were rabid and foaming before the radiation even had a chance to sink in.

       It moved again, just slightly. Enough to know that I wasn’t crazy, there was something alive there. I didn’t even care what it was; I had to get to it.

       I dropped to my knees and skidded as I reached it. A beam had fallen across it, pinning it down but I could hear a weak little sound come from under the door as I tried to pry it up. My hands were sore, sweating inside my gloves, but I was able to lift it with all the strength I had left in me. The war had drained me, taken its toll on my psyche and my body like a tax collector shaking down a poor man for more when there was nothing left to give.

       Dusty green fabric, brown hair, once-white stockings. It was a little girl. Her skin was blistering, burned, raw. No one could know how long she’d been there, soaking in radiation and heat without even a hint of moisture in the air. She reached out, slowly, shaking, and just barely reached the toe of my boot.

       Before I could reach back, the captain shot her point blank in the back of the head.

       Still holding up the door, I stared down at her lifeless body, unable to move as I imagined the torment she had survived. The war, the pain, being trapped there for days probably. Her frail little body had fought so hard to stay alive, for nothing. All of it was for nothing. Her little green dress fluttered as a gust of wind picked up.

       I shoved the door to the side, not caring where it fell or if it took the remains of the front wall of the house down with it, and punched the captain square in the jaw.

       He stared at me through his mask, not even blinking. I wanted him to be angry again, angry like when I’d stopped marching in the first place. _Fall back in, soldier,_ he said bluntly, so quiet I could barely even hear him, and walked back to where the rest of our platoon still marched forward, three abreast, down the broken road that led through the remains of the suburb.

       The little girl’s hand lay there, still reaching out to where my boot had been. My eyes glazed over as I looked into what had been her home, wondering if she’d had any brothers or sisters, where her parents were, if she’d had a dog that was foaming at the mouth somewhere in the ruins. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the photographs that lay scorched in their frames on the floor, covered in broken glass. Dishes on the table, food beginning to rot, a TV remote, a doll.

       I stepped through a broken section of wall and picked up the doll. The floor groaned and creaked under the heavy weight of my body and my armor. I tried to wipe away the dirt from it with my glove, but only smudged it in. It didn’t matter.

       With trembling hands I slid the girl’s arm, fractured, against her bloody, broken little body, and tucked the doll in against her.

 

* * *

 

 

II.

 

       The dogs were the worst part; everything from great, heavy German Shepherds to tiny, fluff-ball teacup dogs growled angrily at us as we passed. Any that attacked were immediately gifted with a bullet in the brain. While it was easy to fend off an attacking wild animal, the collars and tags around the necks of those which were once beloved pets was more difficult. The image of my own dog came to mind every time I aimed at one of the rabid, snarling, loveless creatures, I faltered, unable to pull the trigger without looking away.

       Jackson, my own old mutt, had died in the initial blast. No one and no animal had survived in my hometown, or even for miles around. Kingston was too close to the blasts centered on the City. The dead shell of New York stretched for miles.

       If I’d known that it would come down to this, to the bombs taking out our entire world, I wouldn’t have signed up. I would have stayed home, alone, with my dog. Lay on the couch with a bowl of chips and a bad movie, Jackson’s head laying lazily across my lap. If I’d known the end of the world was happening, I would have let myself be taken out with it.

       Surviving this brown, dusty wasteland of a world isn’t my idea of life. None of us were ever brought up to be prepared for this. I don’t care how long the war has… had, had been going on, we never expected it to come to this. Letting the bombs fly doesn’t solve anything. No one knows who won or who lost; this front is personal, and the only options are dead or not-yet-dead. It was a war that nobody won and everyone lost.

       The Captain says that every step we take out here is another victory; every mutated _thing_ we take out, another battle won.

       I don’t even know what we’re marching for.

 

* * *

 

III.

 

       I don’t know how anyone could have survived this. Sometimes I wonder if anyone really did – if this is actually Hell or if it’s just Hell on Earth. The world is broken, and I don’t think there can ever be a return from this. The ground is scorched and the water’s undrinkable. Sure Mother Nature will sort it all out after a while, but will we still be around by then?

       The questions don’t stop. Over and over I ask myself anything, just to keep my mind from going to these places. _Who was the first President of the United States? The second? Keep going, name them all. What are the names of all 53 states? The capitals? Name 15 famous inventors and their best known inventions. Name 15 important women in history._ History and geography are safe.

       I don’t try to remember the wars.

       I don’t _want_ to remember the wars.

       When I do, I remember this one. It brings me right back to the beginning, back to the start of each and every morning I wake up and can hardly see the sun anymore through the smog. The days I have to put on a radiation issue suit instead of the standard issue. The weeks we march and cannot shower or clean our clothes because there’s nothing clean to wash with.

_Washington. Adams. Jefferson. Madison. Monroe._

       They tell us we’re marching to another base that might not have been destroyed, that we should be there any day now. “Any day now” should have been over a month ago. I think we’re nearing the remains of Indiana.

_Adams. Jackson. Van Buren. Harrison. Tyler._

       More and more soldiers are deserting every day, a few slipping away each night. Officers report the deserted soldiers as soon as the roll call is finished each dawn. The Captain, on his paperwork, writes each down as a casualty instead. It’s not compassion; he tells us “they’re dead men walking anyway, out there in this wasteland on their own with no food or water.”

_Polk. Taylor. Fillmore. Pierce. Buchanan._

       It’s hard to say which option is better. All I know is that I’m at least not ready to desert until I know there’s somewhere to desert to.

_Lincoln. Johnson. Grant. Hayes. Garfield._

       It would be nice to settle down and start a small farm. Maybe some part of the fractured continent is just alive enough to do that. Start a little village and try to rebuild some idea of life. I’m not too bad with tools, but I’m better with guns.

_Arthur. Cleveland. Harrison. Cleveland. McKinley._

       A couple of the guys I’ve been bunking near have been whispering about deserting. I know I could join them if talked to them about it. Maybe I could get them to wait ‘til we’re closer to somewhere we could scavenge. Get a whole group of us. I’m sure they’re not the only ones.

_Roosevelt. Taft. Wilson. Harding. Coolidge._

       I remember hearing that one of the guys up about five rows was a classic cars fanatic and worked as a mechanic. He could probably get some things up and running for us. Is there anyone who was in medical school before the draft?

_Hoover. Roosevelt. Truman. Eisenhower. Kennedy._

       A few men to build, a few to repair, some to farm, and some to gun. Ten or twelve would be a good number; more than that and it’d be too hard to get out unnoticed. Even harder to keep everyone alive and fed for however long it took to get… somewhere.

_Johnson. Nixon. Ford. Carter. Regan._

       This is crazy. There’s no way it could work. But if it did…

_Bush. Clinton. Bush. Obama. Larson._

       Maybe I’ll talk to those guys tonight. If they’re not already gone, anyway. Start a new life, just as soon as we get to the next city. Should pass another any day now.

_Faulk. Barker. King. Howard. Erikson. Erikson. Erikson._

       Any day now…


End file.
